The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars is a love story written by John Green, published in 2012. It was TIME Magazine’s No. 1 Fiction Book of 2012, and it also won the 2013 Children’s Choice Teen Book of the Year award. It was so famous that I, who never read tragedy, bought this book because of the word of mouth that The Fault in Our Stars created.

This is a story of a 16 year-old girl named Hazel who has lungs cancer and a 17 year-old boy named Augustus who has osteosarcoma named Augustus. They meet each other in a Support Group, share their lives and fall in love with each other.

I read this book once last year, and the only thing I felt after reading it was sadness. But after I read it again a few weeks ago, I started to understand more through the story and not just feel sad.

The whole book is not just about a sad, romantic love story. It also makes people think about the value of life.

There was a boy called Isaac in the Support Group. His girlfriend, Monica, broke up with him because he was going blind. When Hazel found out that Monica never met Isaac again after he became blind, Hazel said, “To be fair to Monica, what you did to her wasn’t very nice either.” Isaac was quite defensive about that, “what did I do to her?” and Hazel responded, “You know, going blind and everything.” Isaac said, “But it’s not my fault.” Hazel said, “I’m not saying it was your fault. I’m just saying it’s not nice.”

I was really touched by what Hazel thought. Monica was still a teenager, how could she face a boyfriend who’s blind and was maybe going to die? Hazel thought that every cancer patient was a grenade, it could detonate at any moment. By the time it explodes, the one who’s suffering is not only the cancer patient, but also everyone around the cancer patient. So Hazel was really afraid to be remembered by people because she didn’t want to hurt them after she “explodes”.

Augustus had a totally different idea to Hazel, he thought that life only became meaningful when you contributed something to the world and everyone’s remembered you. Augustus was afraid of oblivion. He hoped that everyone would remember him and never forget him.

I actually stayed neutral to their ideas. As Augustus said, “The world is not a wish-granting factory.” Hazel will be remembered after she died someday, and Augustus might be forgotten by someone someday.

The Fault in Our Stars is a pretty nice book and it’s not very hard to read. I’m sure you will get into the book while reading it and feeling sad for Hazel and Augustus.

(This book report was the 1st prize in 2015-2016 Book Report Competition Junior Section )